Domino chains

Kids find pleasure with simple things and you can't get any more simpler than with dominoes. My son can spend hours at a time setting up dominoes in the living room taking extra care in lining them up one by one in hopes that he has covered the whole designated area he has envisioned in his mind before he set out to do his amazing domino chain. He has been setting up domino chains since he was 5 years old and he has learned through experience how frustrating it can be when the dominoes topple over before he has intended them to.

I have seen him construct some amazing set ups that we have captured on video. What normally takes hours to constuct usually takes less than a minute to topple over in a chain reaction. The most exciting part of watching dominoes topple over is seeing them all go down because they were properly placed apart from one another. That is the secret in building them and knocking them down. You have to space the dominoes apart enough that if one was to go down by accident it would not knock the whole chain down but would be spaced close enough apart that the chain of falling dominoes would fall with no interuptions when the chain is initiated to fall.

In the exciting world of domino chains there are literally no boundaries of what you can do and there are some very exciting competitions to showcase the most imaginitive and creative constructions of chains that span long distances and start in multiple directions. Some of the most creative domino chains are linked to other kinds of chains with offshoots that present multiple challenges and when you see everything happen as planned it is truly amazing and very captivating.

Engineers are known to make the most imaginitive of domino chains with tremendous precision that tests all the laws of nature and makes the spectators watch with awe and delight. Engineers have created chain reactions with machines or have linked the domino chain to other types of chain reactions that encompass other spectacular and visual events within the chain.

Dominoes come in all shapes, sizes and colors but the ones my son prefers are the typical mexican train dominoes which are pretty sturdy and come in the standard color of white. In order to make large chains you need according to my son at least 500 dominoes so you can have a pretty long chain that can be arranged in so many different ways and with creative energies you can design some pretty amazing displays that are fun to watch and knock down.

The games we play as kids usually remain with us in our memories and when we think back to that time we can smile and remember the times and teach our kids and share with them our experiences and teach them to appreciate the fun games we played as kids too. I also was a fan of domino chains and a game that required skill in balancing a steel marble on a track called labrynth. The joy of dominoes can be shared with kids, parents and grandparents and when all are together to experience the joy of a child and their domino chain it is pure magic.

Edward D. Iannielli III